Actress Jenna Elfman Joins Best for Babes Advisory Board

The Best for Babes® Foundation is thrilled to to announce that actress Jenna Elfman, star of NBC’s new comedy, Growing Up Fisher, has agreed to join their Advisory Board. As a mother who struggled with breastfeeding and ultimately succeeded, Ms. Elfman will work with Best for Babes to raise awareness of the unnecessary obstacles millions of expecting and new moms face every year — the Breastfeeding Booby Traps®. She will help Best for Babes inspire, prepare and empower moms to achieve their personal breastfeeding goals.

“I am honored and thrilled to work with Best for Babes to help moms and babies,” says Jenna Elfman. “I don’t want other women to experience what I experienced with my first child. Breastfeeding can be incredibly rewarding and empowering, and all moms that want to and are able to breastfeed deserve to have that experience. As someone who donated her milk to a very sick baby, I also believe that mothers and babies deserve better access to donor milk.”

According to recent research, more moms than ever want to breastfeed and 77% try— but very few make it past the first few days and weeks. The average hospital in the U.S. scores a “D” in breastfeeding support, and 25% of full-term, healthy newborns are being supplemented unnecessarily, often in spite of the parents’ wishes. In the U.S., only 16% of U.S. moms breastfeed exclusively until 6 months, putting the United States in the bottom rung of most industrialized countries where breastfeeding is concerned.

“We are thrilled that Ms. Elfman is coming on to the Advisory Board, and is bringing her passion, leadership, inimitable style and great sense of humor to the breastfeeding cause. Ms. Elfman’s involvement sends the message that fighting the breastfeeding barriers, focusing on prevention, and building the breastfeeding cause should be top of the national priority charts,” says Best for Babes Co-Founder Danielle Rigg. “Human milk is the first defense against illness and disease and is the foundation of human health. Helping mothers to breastfeed benefits moms, babies, society and the planet.” adds Rigg, who is also a breast cancer survivor. “Breastfeeding is indisputably as good for us as exercise, and moms deserve to be cheered on. This is a cause for all of us to get behind.”

*Jenna Elfman won a Golden Globe for her role in the hit TV series “Dharma & Greg”. Her new comedy, “Growing Up Fisher“, debuts Sunday February 23. Jenna also appeared in the hit comedy “Friends with Benefits” with Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis, and starred in “Keeping the Faith” with Ben Stiller and Edward Norton. We named Jenna a Best for Babes Champion for Moms in 2010 when she shared with us her own struggles with the Breastfeeding Booby Traps®, how she overcame them and eventually donated her milk to a severely ill baby. (Read the interview: Part I and Part II .) Along with Kelly Preston and Laila Ali, Jenna Elfman co-hosted the first-ever celebrity breastfeeding & toxin-free living event in 2012, at her home, to raise awareness of the barriers to breastfeeding (and how to succeed!) and the benefits of toxin-free living in raising healthy children. The event was a collaboration between Best for Babes and Healthy Child Healthy World. Jenna is married to Bodhi Elfman. They have two awesome children, Story and Easton.

Best for Babes is the only mainstream, independent non-profit dedicated to changing the cultural perception of breastfeeding and to removing the barriers—the Breastfeeding Booby Traps® — that prevent millions of moms annually from realizing their personal breastfeeding goals. Best for Babes is harnessing the power of moms, celebrities, companies, advertising, the media and the medical community to build a true cause that can put pressure on the barriers, not moms, through education, advocacy and Team Best for Babes. We are raising awareness of the power of human milk (whether via breastfeeding or donated milk) as both prevention and treatment for pandemic diseases.